Half-Sick of Shadows

Synopsis

On the eve of Granny Hazel's burial in the back garden, a stranger in his time machine - a machine that bears an uncanny resemblance to a Morris Minor - visits five year-old Edward with a strange request.And Edward agrees to be his friend.But Edward is not alone in the world. His twin sister, Sophia, is about to bring future tragedy upon herself through an all-too-literal misunderstanding of a promise she made to their father.And so while Sophia stays at home in The Manse, Edward is sent to boarding school. There he encounters the kind and the not-so-kind and befriends the strangest child, Alf - a boy whose very existence seems to hint at universes of unlimited possibilities...and who might one day help Edward free Sophia.A comical tragedy, a tale of childhood wonder and dismay, a story of familial dysfunction, of poetry, the imagination and theoretical physics, this novel is all of these and rather more besides.'A most excellent writer.' TERRY PRATCHETT